REPRISE - exhibition of the 2020 MFA graduates

Opening reception: Thursday June 2, 5:00–8:00 pm

The Department of Fine Arts and UWAG present an exhibition of the 2020 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) who had their thesis exhibitions cancelled during the first wave of the pandemic.

*Please join us in celebrating the work of our 2020 MFA alumni in-person! Visitors are required to comply with campus safety guidelines

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Brubey Hu, Tyler Matheson, B Wijshijer, and Kayla Witt
REPRISE

REPRISE brings together artworks by University of Waterloo MFA alumni Brubey Hu, Tyler Matheson, B Wijshijer, and Kayla Witt. Following two years of restrictions and uncertainty, each artist continued to produce and exhibit work despite often challenging circumstances. Over ongoing conversations with the artists, UW Fine Arts and UWAG agreed to host some form of meaningful return engagement—a reprise of sorts. The result is a culminating group exhibition featuring multidisciplinary works that range from painting and photography to video and poetry. REPRISE celebrates the persistence of these alumni and the vitality of the MFA program.

Brubey Hu works mostly in painting and artists’ books. Her creative interests include architecture, dualism, translation, feminism, memory, and colour theory. She recently exhibited as part of Dynamic Relations at Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC; and Show.21 at Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON. She attended the Tao Hun Tan: 4th International Artist Retreat and Residency in China in 2019; and the BAiR Emerging Visual and Digital Arts Residencyrts in Alberta in 2018. brubey-hu.com

Tyler Matheson is a queer interdisciplinary artist, educator, and culture worker residing in the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. His work serves as an aesthetic and material investigation of the performativity of othered bodies, identities, and visibility. Recent exhibitions include that was then, this is now at Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto; Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Sudbury; Above the Belt, Below the Bush with Minor Hockey Curatorial, North Bay; and Minding the Archive, Hamilton Artists Inc. He is currently a resident artist at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. tylermatheson.ca

B Wijshijer makes sneaky videos, performances, installations, digital images and props that interrogate computer-mediated intimacy via the societal constructions of online scams, tricks, and jokes. Interested in magic, love and transcendence within late capitalism, their work jests within the contrast of unity, bliss, and commodity. Selected exhibitions and screening include Open Windows, Art Museum at University of Toronto; MoveObjectOn, the plumb, Toronto; Mimema, Ed Video at Platforms Project NET 2021, Athens, Greece; Zoom Obscura, InSpace Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland. shrimpychip.net

Kayla Witt explores contemporary anxieties surrounding both domestic and urban spaces in paintings, installations, and videos. Her recent photography examines the nefarious side of commodified wellness and the revolving door of psychic healers observed in her new home of Los Angeles. She has exhibited at Critical Distance Centre for Curators, Toronto, ON; Bunker 2 Contemporary Art Container, Toronto, ON; and has been an artist-in-residence at Struts Gallery and Faucet Media Arts Centre in Sackville, NB; and the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA. kaylawitt.com

Image: Kayla Witt, Déjà Vu (detail 1 of 49), archival giclee prints on matte photo paper, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.